Bryan Goldberg | |
---|---|
Born | Los Altos, California, U.S. | June 29, 1983
Alma mater | Middlebury College |
Occupation(s) | CEO and Co-founder of Bustle |
Known for | Founder of Bleacher Report Founder and CEO of Bustle |
Website | bustle |
Bryan Goldberg (born June 29, 1983) is an American entrepreneur and the owner of Bustle Digital Group, which operates a number of media properties, including Bustle , Nylon , W Magazine and Gawker . Previously, Goldberg founded Bleacher Report, a sports news website that sold to Turner Broadcasting System in 2012 for $200 million. [1]
Bryan Goldberg is widely considered to be a polarizing figure in New York media. He has been described as the “buyer of last resort” [2] for his hard-nosed deal-making tactics, and a “media mogul” by The New Yorker . [3]
Goldberg grew up in Los Altos, California. His father was a technology executive who worked at Atari and Quantum and his mother was a homemaker. [1] He earned his undergraduate degree from Middlebury College, where he studied economics and Japanese. He briefly worked as an investment banker at Credit Suisse, and later worked as an analyst at Deloitte Consulting.
Goldberg founded Bleacher Report in 2007 with David Finocchio, Alexander Freund, and David Nemetz, who were friends from middle school. Though not an engineer by training, Goldberg took on most of the technical tasks related to the sports news website. Bleacher Report quickly became a competitor to traditional sports news media such as ESPN and Sports Illustrated . It drew huge audiences with its high volume of content and slideshows. [1] The company also launched the Team Stream app and ultimately surpassed ESPN as the largest sports network for mobile and social media. [4]
In 2012 the site was acquired for $200 million by Turner Broadcasting System. After the sale, Goldberg and his cofounders took all 160 employees on a trip to Las Vegas. [5]
Goldberg left Bleacher Report in 2013 to found Bustle , a women’s interest website. In preparation, he interviewed hundreds of women about what they thought was missing from traditional publications such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan . [6] While the launch was met with criticism, Bustle has grown to 31.2 million readers, nearly half being the desirable demographic of women under 34. It combines soft news with more about politics, business, and government. [7]
In April 2017, Goldberg and his company acquired Elite Daily , a millennial-focused site, from the Daily Mail and rebranded it as Bustle Digital Group. [8]
In March 2018, Goldberg purchased The Zoe Report from celebrity style icon Rachel Zoe. She subsequently became a partner in his Bustle Digital Group venture. [9]
In July 2018, Goldberg purchased the rights to Gawker at a bankruptcy auction. The popular site had previously been forced into closure after being sued by professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. Gawker’s auction was the subject of great media attention, and Goldberg’s initial refusal to state his plans for the site made him the subject of intense speculation. He subsequently announced plans to relaunch Gawker in early 2019, but later paused the project. [10]
In November 2018, Goldberg purchased Mic.com for a reported price of under $10 million [11] —a sharp discount from the nearly $100 million that the company had been worth only a year prior. Goldberg cited his desire to expand Bustle Digital Group further into News and Politics, a move that was criticized by the Mic Union after widespread corporate layoffs. [12]
In July 2019, Goldberg acquired Nylon , an alternative fashion and music publication with a focus in experiential marketing. Though the magazine had previously exited print, Goldberg promised to resume publishing the magazine. [13]
In August 2020, Goldberg pushed further into fashion by partnering with celebrities Karlie Kloss, Kaia Gerber, and Lewis Hamilton to acquire W Magazine . The luxury fashion magazine had previously been part of Conde Nast. [14]
To date, the company has raised $80 million in venture capital funding and has been valued at just over $200 million. [7]
Bryan Goldberg purchased the hat owned and worn by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at a Sotheby’s auction in November, 2021 for a price of $1,400,000. [15] He told the New York Post that “I can’t believe the price I got” on the historical object given its rarity and good condition. Previously, the hat had been owned by Scottish nobles descended from Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart, who purchased the hat in 1814 and was acquainted with Bonaparte’s family. [16]
Goldberg said that he intends to lend the hat to a museum, but also plans to wear it at formal occasions and possibly at his wedding. [17]
The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
Fortune is an American global business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, a global business media company. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The magazine competes with Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek in the national business magazine category and distinguishes itself with long, in-depth feature articles.
Nylon is an American multimedia brand and publishing company, which produces a lifestyle magazine that focuses on pop culture and fashion. Its coverage includes art, beauty, music, design, celebrities, technology and travel. Originally a print publication, it switched to an all-digital format in 2017. Its name references New York and London, and it is currently owned by the Bustle Digital Group. The magazine will return to print in 2024.
Gawker was an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers that was based in New York City and focused on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month in 2015. Founded in 2002, Gawker was the flagship blog for Denton's Gawker Media. Gawker Media also managed other blogs such as Jezebel, io9, Deadspin and Kotaku.
Gawker Media LLC was an American internet media company and blog network. It was founded by Nick Denton in October 2003 as Blogwire, and was based in New York City. Incorporated in the Cayman Islands, as of 2012, Gawker Media was the parent company for seven different weblogs and many subsites under them: Gawker.com, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel. All Gawker articles are licensed on a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license. In 2004, the company renamed from Blogwire, Inc. to Gawker Media, Inc., and to Gawker Media LLC shortly after.
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Jezebel is a US-based website featuring news and cultural commentary geared towards women. It was launched in 2007 by Gawker Media under the editorship of Anna Holmes as a feminist counterpoint to traditional women's magazines.
Bleacher Report is a website that focuses on sport and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London.
Qwiki was a New York City–based startup automated video production company acquired by Yahoo! on July 2, 2013 for a reported $50 million. Qwiki released an iPhone app that automatically turns the pictures and videos from a user's camera roll into movies to share. The company's initial product, an iPad application that created video summaries of over 3 million search terms, was downloaded more than 3 million times and named by Apple as the best "Search and Reference" application of 2011.
Mic is an American internet and media company based in New York City that caters to millennials.
Vice Media Group LLC is a Canadian-American digital media and broadcasting company. As of April 2024, Vice Media encompasses four main business areas: Vice Studios Group ; Vice TV ; Virtue ; and Vice Digital. It was cited as the largest independent youth media company in the world, with 35 offices.
Bustle is an online American women's magazine founded in August 2013 by Bryan Goldberg. It positions news and politics alongside articles about beauty, celebrities, and fashion trends. By September 2016, the website had 50 million monthly readers.
Social Capital, formerly known as Social+Capital Partnership, is a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. The firm specializes in technology startups, providing seed funding, venture capital, and private equity.
Inverse is an online magazine from Bustle Digital Group, covering topics such as technology, science, and culture for a millennial audience.
Gizmodo Media Group was an online media company and blog network formerly operated by Univision Communications in its Fusion Media Group division. The company was created from assets acquired from Gawker Media during its bankruptcy in 2016. In April 2019, Gizmodo and The Onion were sold to private equity firm Great Hill Partners, which combined them into a new company named G/O Media.
Cheddar Inc. is an American live streaming financial news network founded by Jon Steinberg in the United States. Cheddar broadcasts live daily from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nasdaq, the Flatiron Building in New York City, and the White House lawn and briefing room in Washington, D.C. covering new products, technologies, and services.
The Outline was an online publication focused on "power, culture, and the future." It was founded independently by Joshua Topolsky in 2016 and later became a subsidiary of Bustle.
Dave Nemetz is an American entrepreneur and business executive best known for co-founding Bleacher Report. He founded Inverse in 2015, and was CEO of the company for its first years; he sold it in 2020.
Dave Finocchio is an American businessman who co-founded the sports news website Bleacher Report, which is the second-largest digital sports publisher with over 45 million monthly readers. In 2012, Finocchio led the company through an acquisition by Turner Broadcasting System for approximately $175 million. He stepped away from daily operations of Bleacher Report in 2014 but returned to the company as its CEO in 2016.
G/O Media Inc. is an American media holding company that owns and operates several digital media outlets, including Kotaku, The Root, The Inventory, and Quartz.